Tuesday

                      Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“The greatest inventor is God, he took one of Adam's ribs and created a loudspeaker.”

                                         Anonymous

Two things:
One: There is much ado about civilians being killed or injured as a result of collateral damage during an attack on armed insurgents. Just 73 years ago the US and the allies began an systematic bombing of German and Japanese cities that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. This came after the Germans indiscriminately bombed English, French, Scandinavian, Dutch, Belgian and several other nation's cities killing civilians with the idea of breaking their spirit. Is it OK for our enemies to kill civilians with hope of breaking our spirit but we cannot respond in kind? Read history folks, the destruction of our enemy's cities worked.

Two: During the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage Rome was not very successful against Hannibal in battlefields in Italy so they took another tack. They sailed over to Hannibal's hometown of Carthage (present day Tunis) and killed everything, not everybody, everything and either burned or destroyed all structures. They were not finished...they salted the ground to where nothing would grow...and that was the end of Carthage and eventually Hannibal. The point I am making is that you have to be meaner and more vicious that your adversary...if not you will be fighting to a stalemate at every encounter. The result is a war of attrition that no one wins.

This Date in History July 5

1996 On this date the first cloned mammal in history was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. This miracle of medicine was engineered by the medical school in the University of Edinburgh. The clone was a black maned sheep that was named Dolly after Dolly Parton. The reason for this name was because the tissue used to create the clone came from the mammary glands of the donor. Sheep normally live about 20 years but Dolly expired in just six years. The opponents of cloning lean heavily on this fact because the doctors that did the cloning were unable to control accelerated aging. I personally have not made up my mind on the morality of all of this. It is almost playing God which is too scary for me, I ain't qualified.

1946 On this date French fashion designer Michele Reald introduced a two piece swimsuit at a popular swimming pool in Paris. A week before the United States had tested a nuclear device on the Pacific atoll of Bikini so Michele named his swim suit style accordingly and it has been with us ever since. It is a rumor that shortly after the showing a French priest raised hell and declared that all of the Bikini swim suits should be gathered up and burned. Soon after this a group of French Legionnaires got drunk and sought out and the priest and started beating the hell out of him. They probably would have killed him but another group of drunken civilian Frenchmen happened by and pulled the Legionnaires off so they could get their licks in also. It is just a rumor y'all.

1933 On this date the German Chancellor appoints Fritz Todt as transportation minister and tasked him with creating an autobahn (highway) system. The German Chancellor was a short Austrian name Adolph Hitler. Fritz did not disappoint because by 1939 Germany had the best highway system in the world. But Adolph Hitler did not give a damn about the average German having the best roads to travel on; he wanted the highway system built so he could move the infantry and armor swiftly when the time came. It came in 1939 when he launched an attack on Poland and other Balkan countries. It was a totally new type warfare called a blitz kreig (lightning war) thanks in part to Fritz Todt and his highways.

1861 Three months earlier the Confederate Army launched an artillery barrage on the Union held Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Soon thereafter southern states began seceding from the Union in droves. Among them was the state of Missouri. The Confederacy had raised an army of about 6,500 commanded by Colonel Sterling Price and the Governor of the state Claiborne Jackson. The Confederate army was not well equipped and armed. On this date the Confederates and a Union army of about 1,000 commanded by Colonel Fritz Sigel collide near Carthage, Missouri. Because the Union soldiers were better equipped and well armed and held their own for a while but eventually they had to withdraw. The killed and wounded were minimal for both sides and Sigel took his troops to Springfield to await reinforcements. This encounter was the first organized battle of the Civil War in the western theater. The next battle was called the Battle Wilson’s Creek and I can assure you that the killed and wounded were anything but minimal.

1921 On this date judge Hugo Friend refused to quash the indictments against several baseball players from the Chicago White Sox. These players were accused of intentionally losing the 1919 World Series for money. The scheme was backed financially by world famous gambler Arnold Rothstein. The players for the White Sox were ripe for this because of the ill treatment by White Sox owner Charles Cominskey. It was not uncommon for players having to sue Cominskey for pay that was three or four months past due. In those days the players were basically slaves to the team owners. They could not go to another team without the owner’s approval. But the owner could sell and trade the players like they were indeed slaves. After this World Series scandal broke the team owners got together and created a position known as Baseball Commissioner and hired the king of hard-asses named Judge Kennesaw Landis. Landis barred all the players from ever playing in the major leagues for life regardless of the outcome in the courts. One of them was a perennial all-star name “Shoeless Joe” Jackson from right here in good old Greenville. We don’t believe he took any money and have erected a full sized statue of him on our main drag. We are hard-headed bunch here in the piney woods of northwestern South Carolina. Anyway, in the 1960’s a player named Curt Flood for Saint Louis sued major league baseball because he was not allowed to seek his own contract after the present one expired. Curt did not win but the dilemma faced by professional baseball players was brought out into the open and soon the free agency known today came into being.

1896 In 1858 Bill Doolin was born in the backwoods of Arkansas. At an early age he moved to Oklahoma and began a life of a cowboy. He was involved in a drunken brawl where two deputies were killed. No one knows whether Bill was involved or not but Bill wasn’t taking any chances and he booked. After this he was declared a fugitive and law enforcement began looking for him. Bill decided that a life of crime was the way to go and organized a gang. The gang was pretty successful and would join up with the Dalton gang on occasion. Bill decided he needed a vacation and went to Eureka Springs Spa in Arkansas. Little did he know that one of the most efficient lawmen in the country was on his trail. It was Bill Tilghman who arrested Doolin at the Spa and took him back to Guthrie, Oklahoma where he was jailed. He wasn’t there long before he escaped. On this date he was surrounded by a posse in Lawton, Oklahoma. Bill decided that he wanted to fight and the posse opened up and Bill went down in a hailstorm of gunfire. He was 38 years old.

               Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until  tomorrow